Cosmetic cleansing agents, such as for example hair shampoos, are based on conventional anionic, amphoteric, zwitterionic, non-ionic and/or cationic surfactants.
Owing to their outstanding cleansing and foaming ability, anionic surfactants, optionally mixed with small amounts of co-surfactants, are predominantly used.
Typical anionic surfactants, which are used in a large number of commercially available shampoos, are alkyl sulfates or alkyl ether sulfates.
Alkyl ether sulfates are conventionally preferred as they are milder and have an excellent foaming ability.
When formulating especially mild cleansing compositions for use on sensitive parts of the skin (such as facial skin for example) or for use on babies' skin, alkyl ether sulfates are not always satisfactory, as they have too high an irritation potential for these applications.
Thus countless attempts have been made in the past to find especially mild surfactant blends that have sufficiently large amounts of foam and sufficiently high foam qualities and that have little or no irritation potential on the skin and/or mucous membranes.
The application WO 92/084440 discloses mild surfactant blends having outstanding foam properties, which include a mixture of acyl isethionates, zwitterionic surfactants and alkyl ether sulfates.
WO 11/015857 discloses cleansing compositions having low irritation potential and including novel C5-30 alkoyl-alkyl isethionates and amphoteric surfactants in a weight ratio from 4:1 to 1:4. The mild cleansing agents are suitable for use as a baby shampoo.
The disadvantage of many mild skin and hair cleansing agents is that the improved skin compatibility thereof often comes at the expense of the texture of the cleansing agents.
It has moreover been observed that the care properties of mild cleansing agents (in particular on the hair) are not always satisfactory.
In practice, silicones and/or ethoxylated components have often been added to mild surfactant blends to improve the care properties of the agents, which from an application-related perspective is not desirable in sensitive products and/or baby care products.
The object of the present invention was to produce particularly mild cosmetic cleansing agents that are readily tolerated by the skin and mucous membranes.
The cleansing agents should have a user-friendly texture and should be free-flowing.
Furthermore, the care properties of mild cleansing compositions should be improved without an addition of ethoxylated components and/or an addition of silicones. In particular, mild cosmetic cleansing agents that satisfy the aforementioned requirements even at relatively low pH values should be developed.
Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.